Results

This section assesses the quality of universities in the Czech Republic in various aspects in the academic years 2011/2012 and 2019/2019. “Quality” is initially assessed on the basis of the number of students per standardised pedagogic worker. This is followed by the assessment of the “quality” of pedagogic workers by means of the qualifications they have acquired (professor, docent, specialist assistant with PhD, or specialist assistant without PhD). The authors integrated the monitored indicators of scientific research activities, and also the monitored indicators of the “quality” of tuition within the terms of accreditation activities, into the assessment of the quality of the pedagogic process by means of this indicator. The authors of this paper work on the assumption that university pedagogic workers have a high motivation to acquire higher qualifications and therefore move up the ranks of the university. The universities themselves have detailed internal regulations and guidelines for this matter, the objective of which is a lump sum reward on professional progress within the terms of qualification (successful acquisition of a scientific research grant, publication of articles in magazines with an impact factor, acquisition of a new accreditation or defence of an established accreditation, etc.). The pedagogic workers are also motivated to increase their qualifications by long-term financial compensation, as well as lump sum rewards. This is linked to their progress to higher qualifications and other benefits, which are linked to a rise in status (moral perception by the general public, etc.). This is followed by a section that shows the “quality” of the pedagogic process by combining both indicators, i.e., the number of students in combination with the number of pedagogues and their acquired qualifications.

5.1. Number of Students as a Quality Indicator (Q1)

The first assessed quality indicator is the number of students per standardised peda- gogic worker. The differences at the beginning and end of the monitored period, i.e., in the academic year 2011/2012 and the academic year of 2018/2019, are illustrated in Figure2.

Figure 2.Number of students per standardised pedagogic worker according to MEYS groups in (a) academic year 2011/2012 and (b) academic year 2018/2019.

In the academic year 2011/2012, we observed different values of this indicator across groups of universities. During the illustration using a box plot (see Figure1), which we needed to interpret in the context of the extent of variation influenced by extreme values, we noted a difference in the median (Q = 13.5462;p≤0.01). During this time, with the application of the Bonferroni post hoc method, we could identify the first group of universities, i.e., art universities, as a separate group. We can confirm H1 on the basis of these results.

Despite this difference, the homogeneity of their dispersal was confirmed (LE = 0.8543;

p= 0.4793), and therefore the differences within individual groups are the same. Differ- ences between individual groups of universities increased significantly at the end of the monitored period. Nonuniversity colleges (the second group) retained a dominant position;

we recorded the fewest students in the academic year of 2018/2019 at art universities. The differences (Q = 12.0182;p≤0.01) and also uniform dispersal (LE = 2.6754;p= 0.0722) were maintained. Whether we can extrapolate this to the entire monitored period or whether it is relevant to just the two aforementioned academic years is reported in Figure3.

Figure 3.Evolution of the median number of students per standardised pedagogic worker according to the MEYS group from academic years 2011/2012 to 2018/2019.

When monitoring the change in the number of students per standardised pedagogic worker (Figure3), we observed a stable development, or a slight reduction, in the case of art universities (the first group) and larger universities (the fourth group). In the case of these institutions, the shift in the number of pedagogic workers reflects the shift in the number of students and vice versa, whereas the year-on-year shift did not exceed 5% (negative in the majority of cases). In the other two groups, this year-on-year reduction was more marked, often exceeding 10% (six of 14). Nonuniversity colleges and smaller universities are unable to deal with a fall in the number of students, which is also reflected in the number of their pedagogic workers (see Figure4).

Figure 4. Evolution of the median number of standardised pedagogic worker (a) and students (b) according to the MEYS group from academic years 2011/2012 to 2018/2019.

5.2. Quality of the Pedagogic Apparatus as a Quality Indicator (Q2)

The second assessed indicator for evaluating the quality of the pedagogic process at universities is the quality of the pedagogic apparatus, taking into consideration qualifica- tions in the form of academic titles. The state at the beginning and end of the monitored period, i.e., academic year 2011/2012 and academic year 2018/2019, is reported in Figure5.

Figure 5.The quality of the pedagogic apparatus according to the MEYS group in academic years 2011/2012 (a) and 2018/2019 (b).

At the beginning of the monitored period, we can observe the quality of the ped- agogic apparatus (Figure5) through the variability within the terms of the group and also in the difference in quality between groups. The greatest differences are in the least numerous group of nonuniversity colleges (vgroup1= 7.96%); on the contrary, the smallest differences can be observed for larger universities, i.e., within the terms of the fourth group (vgroup4= 1.22%). However, the differences in the quality of the pedagogic apparatus cannot be called significantly different between individual groups (Q = 1.7487;p= 0.6261).

On the basis of these results, we can disprove H2.

At the end of the monitored period, we repeatedly observe the uniformity of the group of larger universities (v_group4= 1.25%) during a reduction of the differences in other groups.

Differences within the terms of the variability of individual groups (LE = 4.5110;p= 0.0130), not between them (Q = 4.8372;p= 0.1844), were confirmed. Whether we can attribute this state to the entire monitoring period is reported in Figure6.

Figure 6.Development of the median quality of the pedagogic apparatus according to the MEYS group from academic years 2011/2012 to 2018/2019.

When monitoring the development of the quality of the pedagogic apparatus, we observed a different situation between groups of universities (Figure6). Year-on-year changes, with the exception of one situation (academic year 2012/2013 in the second group), did not exceed 2% in the positive or negative sense. From this viewpoint, the differences between the three groups of universities are minimal. The quality of the pedagogic apparatus is lowest in the long term at nonuniversity colleges; however, these differences continued to decrease after academic year 2012/2013. This structure, expressed in terms of the number of individual pedagogic workers, is reported in Figure7.

Figure 7.Structure of the pedagogic apparatus of the MEYS groups from academic years 2011/2012 to 2018/2019 (median).

5.3. Number of Students and the Quality of the Pedagogic Apparatus from the Viewpoint of Individual Universities

The last part of the analysis concerns both monitored indicators of the quality of the pedagogic process simultaneously. The results of monitoring the number of students per standardised pedagogue and also the quality of the pedagogic apparatus are as follows (see Figure8).

Figure 8.Quality of the pedagogic apparatus vs. number of students per standardised pedagogic worker according to the MEYS groups in academic year 2018/2019.

The results illustrate a considerable overlap regardless of the categorisation of the university. Art universities (the first group) can be characterised by a smaller number of students per standardised pedagogic worker. On the contrary, nonuniversity colleges (the second group) have a greater number of students. Within the third group of smaller universities, we observe differences more in the number of students than in the quality of the pedagogic apparatus. The results of larger schools (the fourth group) do not de facto differ from the results of the preceding group. If both quality indicators are taken into account simultaneously, without taking into account the PU group, the order is as follows (Table3).

Table 3.Comparison of the quality of UP using TOPSIS techniques in the academic years 2011/2012 and 2018/2019.

2011/2012 2018/2019

Rank MEYS University Ci MEYS University Ci

1. 1 JAMU 1 1 JAMU 1

2. 1 AMU 0.992884 1 AMU 0.972143

3. 3 VŠCHT 0.985846 3 VŠCHT 0.960658

4. 1 AVU 0.977419 1 AVU 0.914956

5. 1 UMPRUM 0.973456 1 UMPRUM 0.888070

6. 4 ˇCVUT 0.971903 4 ˇCVUT 0.841761

7. 3 TUL 0.968333 3 VFU 0.809662

8. 4 UK 0.962300 3 TUL 0.770473

9. 4 UP 0.962186 3 OU 0.754386

10. 3 JU 0.961192 3 Z ˇCU 0.737655

11. 3 OU 0.955287 3 JU 0.732830

12. 3 Z ˇCU 0.954367 3 UPa 0.725362

13. 4 VUT 0.953012 3 VŠB-TUO 0.717977

14. 3 VŠB-TUO 0.951619 4 UP 0.708175

Table 3.Cont.

2011/2012 2018/2019

Rank MEYS University Ci MEYS University Ci

15. 3 MEN 0.950940 4 UK 0.655043

16. 3 UPa 0.949021 3 UJEP 0.641483

17. 3 UJEP 0.945110 3 MEN 0.637044

18. 4 MU 0.940218 4 MU 0.632998

19. 3 UHK 0.937717 4 VUT 0.621358

20. 3 SU 0.932894 3 SU 0.567808

21. 3 VŠE 0.931311 3 UHK 0.539711

22. 3 UTB 0.924072 3 UTB 0.517417

23. 3 ˇCZU 0.917987 2 VŠPJ 0.467984

24. 2 VŠPJ 0.902251 3 VŠE 0.434042

25. 2 VŠTE 0.842624 3 ˇCZU 0.213620

26. 3 VFU 0 2 VŠTE 0.011005

Ci—relative distance to PIS alternative (result of TOPSIS technique).

The Janáˇcek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (JAMU) can be identified as the best-rated UP in the first and last assessed years, followed by the Academy of Per- forming Arts in Prague (AMU) and the University of Chemistry and Technology (VŠCHT).

The highest quality of the pedagogic process is therefore observed in the first group of art UP. On the contrary, from the viewpoint of the second assessed indicator, the quality of the pedagogic process is the lowest at nonuniversity public colleges. The greatest shift in the order of placement can be attributed to the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno (VFU).

Looking back, we can observe an increase in differences between individual UP, which is accompanied by a reduction in the skew of the acquired results (β2011=−4.878;

β2018=−1.113). If we viewed the relationship between these quality indicators at the level of individual groups of UP, the results would be as follows (Table4).

Table 4.Results of order linear correlation of quality indicators (Q1, Q2).

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4

rK −0.43 * 0.19 −0.01 0.17

* Significant at the level of importanceα= 0.05.

The quality of the pedagogic apparatus increases the smaller the number of students, i.e., with more time to devote to each student. There is also the opportunity for personal development, publication, or project activities. In other UP groups, these two indicators of quality do not correlate in a linear way. The assumption for H3 was therefore confirmed only in the case of art UP (the first group), i.e., we can disprove H3.